BESIDES a ward councillor “forgetting” to hand over special votes, a scanner not functioning properly and a voting station running out of ballot papers, political parties in the Northern Cape expressed their general satisfaction with the IEC’s running of the polls in yesterday’s general election.

The Freedom Front Plus leader in the Northern Cape, Wynand Boshoff, said that the rain had put “somewhat of damper” on yesterday’s voting. “But this is Kimberley. We know that the rain doesn’t continue for long.”

Boshoff said that he was happy with the IEC’s arrangements. “The only problems we encountered was the IEC not visiting the old age home in Hopetown yesterday (Tuesday). It, however, turned out that the votes were handed to the ward councillor who forgot to hand it over to the IEC. This has obviously been resolved now.”

Another problem encountered by the party’s officials was a scanner not functioning properly. “This was resolved very quickly once we reported it,” Boshoff said.

The FF+ also reported the depletion of ballot papers at the Moffatt Mission voting station in Kuruman. “The relevant parties were informed,” said Boshoff.

The EFF in the Province also indicated yesterday afternoon that it was “quite happy” with events so far.

Shadrak Tlhaole, the party’s provincial secretary, said: “So far, so good. We have not really encountered any problems. Things, so far, are looking good.”

Tlhaole said that their pre-election hard work would definitely reflect in the results. “Of course more hard work is needed. We can still do better,” he added.

Cope in the Northern Cape said that it had not encountered anything “dodgy” so far, but the party would remain vigilant.

“This is a crucial election and we have to be vigilant the entire time. We all know what has happened in previous elections. But, so far we haven’t observed anything funny or strange,” Selelo Seretse, Cope’s provincial elections secretary, said yesterday.

Seretse said the party was positive that it would do much better in this election than the last. “There are a lot of new faces in the party and the people on the ground are seeing that we have been neglected by government. These people have now come on board and are noticing that our party is the only party that gives them hope. It’s time for a fresh start,” Seretse said.